Miracles arise from our ignorance of nature, not from nature itself. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
The laws of conscience, though we ascribe them to nature, actually come from custom. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Nature is a gentle guide, but not more sweet and gentle than prudent and just. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
There is nothing useless in nature; not even uselessness itself — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
The most fruitful and natural exercise for our minds is, in my opinion, conversation. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
There is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Natural inclinations are assisted and reinforced by education, but they are hardly ever altered or overcome. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
There is no desire more natural than the desire of knowledge. (Il n'est desir plus naturel que le desir de connaissance) — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Nature clasps all her creatures in a universal embrace; there is not one of them which she has not plainly furnished with… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
It is indeed the boundary of life, beyond which we are not to pass; which the law of nature has pitched for… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
There is nothing so noble and so right as to play our human life well and fitly, nor anything so difficult to… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Amongst all other vices there is none I hate more than cruelty, both by nature and judgment, as the extremest of all… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
I want to be seen here in my simple, natural, ordinary fashion, without straining or artifice; for it is myself that I… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Physicians have this advantage: the sun lights their success and the earth covers their failures. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
I cruelly hate cruelty, both by nature and reason, as the worst of all the vices. But then I am so soft… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
We hold death, poverty, and grief for our principal enemies; but this death, which some repute the most dreadful of all dreadful… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Examples teach us that in military affairs, and all others of a like nature, study is apt to enervate and relax the… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Nature has with a Motherly Tenderness observed this, that the Action she has enjoyned us for our Necessity should be also pleasant… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
“Had I been placed among those nations which are said to live still in the sweet freedom of nature's first laws, I… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
The world is but a perennial movement. All things in it are in constant motion-the earth, the rocks of the Caucasus, the… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Water, earth, air, fire, and the other parts of this structure of mine are no more instruments of your life than instruments… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
There is a certain consideration, and a general duty of humanity, that binds us not only to the animals, which have life… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
“Compare with such a one the common rabble of mankind, stupid and mean-spirited, servile, instable, and continually floating with the tempest of… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
“I have no other passion to keep me in breath. What avarice, ambition, quarrels, law suits do for others who, like me,… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Men do not know the natural infirmity of their mind: it does nothing but ferret and quest, and keeps incessantly whirling around,… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Nature has, herself, I fear, imprinted in man a kind of instinct to inhumanity. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
If I were of the trade, I should naturalize art as much as they "artialize" nature. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from Custom. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Scratching is one of nature's sweetest gratifications, and nearest at hand. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
“Let us give Nature a chance; she knows her business better than we do.” — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
T is one and the same Nature that rolls on her course, and whoever has sufficiently considered the present state of things… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately.… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
“There is nothing more unsociable than man, and nothing more sociable: unsociable by his vice, sociable by his nature.” — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share
The laws keep up their credit, not by being just, but because they are laws; 'tis the mystic foundation of their authority; they have… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share
Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share
Beauty is the true prerogative of women, and so peculiarly their own, that our sex, though naturally requiring another sort of feature, is never… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share
The height and value of true virtue consists in the facility, utility, and pleasure of its exercise; so far from difficulty, that boys, as… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share
The plainest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness: her state is like that of things in the regions above the moon, always clear… — Michel De Montaigne Copy Share
The corruption of the age is made up by the particular contribution of every individual man; some contribute treachery, others injustice, atheism, tyranny, avarice,… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share
If people must be talking about me, I would have it to be truthfully and justly. I would willingly return from the next world… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share
In true friendship, in which I am expert, I give myself to my friend more than I draw him to me. I not only… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share
There are as many and innumerable degrees of wit, as there are cubits between this and heaven. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share
Lucius Arruntius killed himself, he said, to escape both the future and the past. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share
I have a vocabulary all my own. I pass the time when itis wet and disagreeable. Whenit is fine I do not wish to… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share
